An Analysis of Chinese Mother-Daughter Relationships in Two Films Based on Female Subjectivity

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Female Subjectivity; Mother-Daughter Relationships; Gender Performativity Theory; Everything Everywhere All at Once; Her Story

Abstract

This study focuses on the construction of female subjectivity within the investigation of mother-daughter relationships in feminist film, presenting case analyses of two phenomenal films: Everything Everywhere All at Once and Her Story. Employing qualitative research and media analysis methods, and integrating Beauvoir’s Other Theory and Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity Theory, this research delves deeply into the adversarial narratives and pathways to subjectivity awakening in depicted mother-daughter relationships. Everything Everywhere All at Once utilizes a multiverse narrative to portray the intense collision between traditional motherhood and postmodern female subjectivity, ultimately leading towards the reconfiguration of intersubjective relationships. Her Story employs an everyday-life narrative to demonstrate emergent maternal praxis models, revealing the realistic possibility of female subjectivity awakening through tripartite exploration of workplace dilemmas, artistic enlightenment, and emotional bonds. This research enriches the theoretical dimension of female subjectivity studies by investigating the delicate complexity of mother-daughter relationships and confirms that the awakening of female subjectivity is not a simplistic power struggle but rather the realization of emotional bonds and value co-creation through intergenerational interaction. These findings offer significant implications for recognizing diverse motherhood forms in social practice.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Huilin Xu
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - An Analysis of Chinese Mother-Daughter Relationships in Two Films Based on Female Subjectivity
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 165
EP  - 173
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_18
ID  - Xu2025
ER  -